Maryland’s Waterfront Turns Electric as USTOA 2025 Draws the World’s Top Tour Operators to Forge the Future of International Travel

Published on December 5, 2025

Maryland’s National Harbor served as the destination for the 2025 USTOA Annual Conference & Marketplace, transforming the Potomac River waterfront into a hub of international travel commerce. Held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center from December 1 to 5, the event brought together North America’s leading tour operators with global travel suppliers for four days of structured business meetings and industry analysis. The setting — one of Prince George’s County’s most prominent hospitality and convention districts — provided a strategic base for a gathering known throughout the industry for its concentrated, high-level commercial engagement.

Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center Anchors a Premier Global Tourism Gathering

The Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center offered the expansive venue capacity required for a gathering of senior travel-industry decision makers. With nearly 2,000 guest rooms and more than half a million square feet of event, meeting, and exhibition space, the property stands among the East Coast’s largest non-gaming hotel-convention complexes. Its signature glass atrium overlooking the Potomac, combined with extensive ballroom and breakout facilities, positioned it as a fitting host for one of the U.S. travel sector’s most strategically important B2B events.

Public-sector tourism materials from Prince George’s County and Maryland Tourism identify the Gaylord National as a cornerstone of the region’s meetings and conventions economy. National Harbor’s master-planned development — featuring hospitality, dining, retail, and entertainment infrastructure — aligns with state and county objectives to support year-round convention activity. This foundation made the 2025 conference a natural fit for both the venue and its surrounding economic district.

Marketplace Format Strengthens Supplier–Operator Connections for the U.S. Travel Market

The USTOA marketplace model, a defining feature of the annual conference, structures the event around scheduled business appointments. U.S. tour operators, recognized as “Active Members,” remain stationed at fixed meeting spaces. International suppliers, destination representatives, and hospitality providers rotate through pre-booked sessions, ensuring efficient, targeted exchanges with buyers responsible for curating travel products for the North American market.

The format is designed to maximize commercial productivity. Instead of exhibition halls filled with large display booths, the system enables suppliers to invest time and resources directly into strategic discussions with senior operators. This approach supports structured negotiations, product presentations, and planning for future seasons, reducing logistical complexity and emphasizing meaningful business development.

Complementing these meetings, the conference integrates educational sessions and industry briefings. These sessions present regulatory updates, market data, distribution insights, and operational considerations relevant to both inbound and outbound travel. Such programming has long been valued by travel planners preparing destination strategies and crafting future itineraries for group, escorted, and customized travel segments.

National Harbor’s Infrastructure Demonstrates Why Maryland Is Rising in Convention Tourism

National Harbor’s selection as host destination underscored Maryland’s rising profile in large-scale meetings. According to state and county tourism overviews, the waterfront development spans more than 300 acres and includes multiple hotels, extensive dining and entertainment districts, national-level attractions, and direct road access to the Washington metropolitan region. With three major airports serving the Capital Region, the location offers strong domestic and international connectivity.

Convention-oriented destination materials from Prince George’s County highlight the area’s combined inventory of more than 12,000 hotel rooms and extensive meeting facilities, including those at Gaylord National. These assets position National Harbor as a multi-venue meeting ecosystem capable of hosting large conferences, multi-day trade shows, and specialized industry summits.

The clustering of amenities — hotels, convention facilities, restaurants, retail promenades, and waterfront recreation — supports the needs of global travel professionals attending USTOA. Attendees benefit from minimized transit time during the conference and flexible spaces for scheduled and informal meetings. For the state and county, events of this scale generate economic activity across lodging, dining, transportation, and local attractions, reinforcing National Harbor’s role as a key tourism and economic engine.

Conference Outcomes Highlight Shifts in Global Packaging and Destination Strategy

The USTOA Annual Conference & Marketplace exerts an influence extending beyond its four-day program. Decisions made in its meeting rooms shape the future of tour packaging for the North American market. Global destinations, hotels, and attractions use the conference to secure or strengthen their placement within escorted tours, small-group journeys, cultural programs, and FIT-based itineraries.

Educational elements of the conference provide insight into travel demand patterns, emerging destination interest, sustainability expectations, operational readiness requirements, and consumer preferences shaping the coming travel year. These insights guide suppliers as they adjust offerings to align with evolving market dynamics, ensuring that itineraries remain competitive and relevant.

For North American tour operators, the marketplace provides a vetted environment to identify new partners, refine destination portfolios, and diversify product lines. The efficiency and structure of the meeting model allow operators to assess multiple suppliers within a short period, supporting strategic planning for the following travel seasons.

A Destination and an Industry Moving Forward Together

Hosting the 2025 USTOA Annual Conference & Marketplace affirmed National Harbor’s status as one of Maryland’s premier convention destinations. Its combination of large-scale hotel-conference infrastructure, waterfront setting, access to the Washington metropolitan area, and fully integrated visitor amenities provided the necessary foundation for an event of this international magnitude.

As the global travel industry continues to evolve, the marketplace’s appointment-driven format and the destination’s convention-oriented environment together delivered a focused platform for shaping tour operator–supplier relationships. The 2025 gathering reinforced the role of structured B2B tourism events in defining market direction, supporting product development, and energizing the broader U.S. travel landscape heading into the next planning cycle.